Courting Eilonwy
by Ekuboryu
Summary: Prydain fanfiction, takes place during the time frame of Taran Wanderer, a recounting of part of Eilonwy's stay with Rhun and his family. Now with an improved chapter one :)
1. Hair washing

            Eilonwy sighed and pulled up a bit of her hair to examine it in all of its red-gold sogginess.  "I look like a doll someone tried to use for a mop." She crossed her arms. "All of this dratted hair washing." She immediately wished she had kept her mouth shut. No doubt that would send the Queen off correcting her. 

            And indeed it did. "Don't complain child, it's not becoming, and stop playing with it, you'll rat it all up. Besides that you'll get you're embroidery wet." She leaned over. "My goodness what _is _that? A pig?" Queen Teleria eyed Eilonwy "Hardly a befitting subject…but maybe you'll stay with this one." 

            Eilonwy hardly saw any reason why she should have finished anything else.  It wasn't as if there was any use for another handkerchief with blue flowers all over it. You couldn't blow your nose on something you had spent that long on, and if anyone else did they deserved to have _their _fingers pricked and their knuckles ache, not to mention a few hair washings. She decided that explaining this to the Queen might be less than wise. It was a real setback having no one to talk to but the Queen, but they had outright refused to let her tour Mora with Rhun, and obviously Taran was home at Caer Dallben with Coll and Gurgi and Hen.  It was hardly fair that he got to be with everyone and she got to be with no one but the Queen, and a few random ladies here and there.  Talking to them about how bored and lonely she was was like complaining about digging to a mole. 

             Quietly she tried to remember what Hen Wen looked like. She was white, of course, but what color were the insides of her ears? Her hooves? Her eyes?  She had penciled in Hen Wen's form to remind her what lines to stay in to get it right.  Beside the pig was a more shadowy sketch where she hoped to put in the Assistant Pig Keeper who took care of her.  

            "Aren't pigs traditionally depicted as-don't slouch over it like that-pink?"

            "This is a particular pig." Eilonwy replied  "Hen Wen, Dallben's pig. My friend Taran is fond of her."  She sighed. 

            "I know, Taran, the boy with the torn cloak." 

            "Oh don't remember for the torn cloak!" Eilonwy stammered, putting down her embroidery. "That's rude, when he saved your son and he is such a good friend of mine, it's like remembering a rose garden for one bent petal."  

            "Calm down child." Queen Teleria replied, without looking up from her own sewing. "I meant no offense, I am sure he's a fine lad, pick up your sewing and keep working or you'll never finish Jenren." 

            "Hen Wen." Eilonwy corrected. 

            "Whatever." The Queen handed Eilonwy her embroidery "Back to work, dear, and don't make faces like that, you'll give yourself wrinkles. 

            Eilonwy could have screamed. She didn't care about wrinkles. She _wanted _wrinkles; you couldn't teach a girl with wrinkles to be a young lady.  "Whatever" indeed! And the Queen though she could lecture her on manners, she couldn't even get Hen's name right. She was worse than a tone-deaf music teacher.   Eilonwy sighed and took the embroidery from the older woman and, sullenly, started to sew again, staring blankly out the window as she did so.   The sea…It made her want to go swimming.  Not for the sake of swimming, but for the look on all of those proper ladies faces when she jumped in.  She sighed and looked back at the sewing and gave up the idea.  The water here was too rough for that sort of thing, besides she'd likely sink in her million layers of dress.  Furthermore, she hardly wanted to get her hair wet , now that it had dried. They would surely make her wash it again. 

            What she really wanted from the sea was a boat, to take her home.  She would have even settled for traveling with Rhun around the island, for she even missed him.   The clumsy prince wasn't the _best_ of company, but he did talk of things that weren't sewing or dresses or balls or feasts. He had no interest in who was courting who, or where the queen had bought the new set of dishes, and he wouldn't tell her to calm down or stop brooding.   All in all he was far better company than the Queen and her swarm of bees.

            But he was off doing what she couldn't, adventuring.  I was enough to make you jump up and down and scream!  

            Eilonwy was hardly paying attention at all now to the embroidery, which she was reminded of by a sharp pain in her thumb.  She yelped and dropped it on her lap. 

            "Careful dear." Queen Teleria admonished mildly 

            Eilonwy glared.  Being near that woman was enough to make you want to jump out the window and try to fly home.  

            Prince Rhun was having considerably more fun.  The soldiers with him were not. 

            They were on their way home but Rhun had insisted on stopping and trying to pick flowers.  It hadn't worked; he'd managed to find a straggly few but he'd put them in his bag and they'd wilted overnight.  Now he'd just gotten up to his knees in mud trying to build a new bouquet.  

            "Do you think the princess will like them?" He eagerly asked the soldier next to him. 

            The man stared back. "I suppose." He managed, unenthusiastically. They weren't particularly pretty, a little wilted and rather muddy.  

            "I certainly hope she does. She's been so miserable since her friend left, perhaps she should come along next time, she is to be queen, but mother would never stand for it would she, besides there was a lot of mud this time hardly befitting a princess.  I can't wait to get back home at any rate, it's nice to see things but it's nice to sleep in your own bed as well.  It shouldn't be long now. " He put his hands on the saddle to mount and realized he was still holding the flowers. "I say, what do I do with these…I hadn't thought of that…"  

That's it for now, but there will be more SOON.  Please read and review! Here is the disclaimer part : I don't own any of the characters, places, things, or analogies, all of them are Lloyd Alexander's, except the analogies, they are Eilonwy's (which would make them Lloyd Alexander's by proxy, but they aren't in the books so I don't think he wants them. She gave him better ones)  


	2. Flowers from the Prince

Autors note: Sorry its so short! Classwork abounds and I have 2 other stories going, but I do have some, and more is to come. If you are particularly eager read Oboewan's "Fading Summer" and tigerlilly's "Glimpses" they are both, in the words of Eilonwy, lovely. 

"Hullo, Hullo!"  The voice rang out clearly from the hall. Eilonwy jumped and dropped her sewing. As a blonde head peered into the room, smiling. "Princess! I did hope to find you, everyone said I should change but I wanted to get these to you as soon as possible." He stepped in. Eilonwy hid her puzzlement with a smile and rose.  

            The Queen gasped "Rhun! Look at you! You're covered in mud! Don't you dare come a step further like that!"

            Rhun blinks at his mother. "But how else am I to give the Princess Eilonwy her flowers?" He asked, curiously, producing the muddy bouquet from behind his back. 

            "Flower's indeed! They're covered in mud!" 

            Eilonwy glared at her "How rude! Flowers grow in the dirt, it's only fair for them to be muddy, not excepting flowers for the dirt is like throwing away a ruby because its red." She ignored the Queen and stepped forward, taking them. "They're lovely, Rhun" 

             Rhun turned a little red. "I had hoped that you would like them, you always look so very lonely, I hoped they might make you feel a bit more at home and…" He looked down at the mud he was dripping on the rug  "I say, I am getting things rather dirty." 

            "Out!" The Queen snapped, rising to her feet.  

            "Yes, of course mother." Rhun replied sheepishly, backing up a step "You do like them, Eilonwy, don't you?" 

            "I already said they were lovely." Eilonwy pointed out, hoping silently that he didn't ask again. She didn't like saying the word lovely too much.  

            "Oh, I'm glad! I was so worried, I had a nicer one but they wilted a bit and then they got ripped up in my bag and I was afraid I wouldn't find anymore, but I did and here they are." 

            "Out." Teleria repeated, stepping forward to usher her son towards the door. "There will be plenty of time for talk when you are clean, dear. You'll be happier that way."

            Eilonwy silently wondered what she wouldn't give to be knee deep in mud.  She could swear that she had almost forgotten what it felt like!  She was too busy wondering to note the way Rhun was blushing, where his eyes were, how he was standing and who he was speaking to and who he was ignoring.  She tried to imagine the flowers were from Tarran, but it hardly worked.  He was too much of an Assistant Pig Keeper to give anyone a flower, even in imaginings.  


	3. Dinner Conversation

Eilonwy never did quite understood what was difference was so great between a banquet and a dinner.  They both involved food, somewhere, at their root, but that really want the focus of either.  In both cases it was, in Eilonwy's opinion, an exercise in boredom, and an opportunity to show the people around you how perfect and well mannered you were by not messing up.  You couldn't really be _praised _for anything you accomplished; the goal was to go unnoticed, except perhaps for your radiant beauty, which was like praising a tree for being tall. 

            Dinner conversation was carefully crafted to be exceedingly dull.  If you talked about anything interesting, like adventures or wars or even pigs, people did a good deal of gasping and calling you a poor child and the Queen chided you later for being vulgar at the dinner table.  The things the women did talk about were the same things they talked about all day, gossip.  It was worse than watching your toenails grow. 

            "Hullo hullo." Prince Rhun greeted, tapping her on the shoulder "Might I sit here?" 

"Well I'm certainly not in charge of that sort of thing, if you'd like to sit, sit, but you might get yelled at." 

"Oh I should hope not, I really would like to tell you all about Mona, it was really very fascinating."   Eilonwy wondered why he was speaking to her about it, but it was more interesting than anything else, and she decided that if he shared it with his mother she would most likely call him vulgar. 

            The prince stopped to take a sip of wine. "What happened to you while I was away?" He asked curiously. "Anything interesting?"

            She made a face. "Not in the slightest.  I think I might have had one or two interesting _thoughts but if I did I was certainly the only one." _

            He frowned "I'm sorry, I suppose you're still lonely…" 

            She looked at Rhun and felt a bit guilty. This certainly wasn't his fault.  "Well I'm not lonely just now." 

            He smiled. She was glad, Rhun frowning was a disconcerting sight. "Oh that's good, I'm glad that you think I'm good company. I would really hate for you to be lonely. You liked the flowers then?" He asked, excitedly.  She nodded, wondering what that had to do with being lonely. "They would have been better if I could have picked them." 

            "You mean you wish you would have been with me?"

            "Well it's always better to be up an around than to be here. I haven't been anywhere else in what seems like a million years.  It's worse than getting both feet stuck in mud." Eilonwy thought longingly of mud.  

            Then would you like me to take you riding?" Rhun asked, excited. 

            "I'd love that!" She replied, just as excited. "Weren't you going to tell me about Mona?" 

            The Queen appeared before he could start his next sentence.  "Rhun what are you doing there?"

            "Talking to the Princess, Mother."

            She clicked her tongue. "That's not your seat. Your seat is over there." 

            Two hearts sank. 

            Rhun got up and bowed to Eilonwy "I'll tell you about Mona on our ride tomorrow."  
            "Ride tomorrow? Indeed, with how muddy you came in today? I think not. Go sit down." 

             Eilonwy frowned and kicked the leg of her chair.  That woman was worse than a hen that thought every chick in the barnyard was hers. 


	4. Kaw

Note: I am sorry that this chapter is so long in coming and SO short, the next is in the works and I plan to move must faster from here. I am citing finals and work as the reasons this one was so short and so slow, but finals are over and work should let up fairly soon. The next chapter should be out by the weekend 

With the disappointment of being denied her ride and even to chance to talk to someone who had something to say, Eilonwy had not enjoyed dinner.  The long meal, compiled with the fact that she had little to look forward too tomorrow, tainted the entertainment afterwards to the point where Eilonwy was counting every moment until she was allowed to go back to her room and hide from being a lady.  Even when she did escape, her room seemed somehow farther from the dining hall than the Marshes or Morva, indeed it seemed further than anything except Caer Dallben.  Eilonwy was so lonely that she was seeing Fflewddur in the bard's shoes, and Taran where a different dark haired boy sat, so homesick that she couldn't eat the ham in thoughts of Hen Wen.  The gray stone made her think of Dallben's hair, and the doorknob of Coll's bald head.  When she opened the door she could even see Taran's bird, Kaw, in the black of the night outside her window. 

But that one was real. 

            Eilonwy suddenly forgot how dreadful her evening had been and shut her door soundly behind her, running over and opening the glass to let him in. "Kaw!" She cried as he flew across the room and landed on the table, setting down a little bottle.  Eilonwy reached out and stroked a feather. "Oh you rascal of a bird! What are you doing here? Did Taran send you?" 

            Kaw pushed Eilonwy's hand away gently with his beak. "Taran! Taran!" 

            Eilonwy took her hands back and clapped "Then he hasn't forgotten me! Oh I have a book worth to tell him…only I don't at all. It's duller here than watching mud dry on your boots." Eilonwy  noticed herself developing a fixation on mud.  

            Kaw beat his wings and Eilonwy sat down to listen to Kaw's halting account of life at Caer Dallben. Taran indeed did miss her, a great deal apparently, and Eilonwy didn't quite know whether to be happy or sad. Beyond that things there seemed as they always were, but Eilonwy longed for that sameness instead of this one.  It was like the difference between a wooden chair and a stone bench.  They were both a place to sit, but they were made up of something entirely different in a completely different way.  

            She sat down and fingered the bottle. "Kaw? What's this?" she asked curiously 

            "Potion." Kaw replied "Glew." 

            "Oh my, A potion for the giant." She fingered it, wondering if Glew's imprisonment was much better than hers.  She would almost like to see it and compare.

Then she looked up at the bird again and a smile fixed on her pretty face. "Kaw, I think you may be my key to an adventure."


End file.
